What Are Students Paying For?

Upper West Side NY

28 August, 2021

5:51 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY ZACHARY SCHERMELE AUGUST 27, 2021 When Eboni Lamy was in high school, she had her sights set on Columbia. After her pastor, whose son went to Columbia, told her the University was looking for students to enroll in its summer immersion program, she did everything she could to make it happen. There was just one problem: the price tag. In 2019, the three-week program cost approximately $10,000—not including the plane ticket from her hometown of Lakeland, Florida. Lamy raised $2,300 through a GoFundMe fundraiser that her pastor advertised and donations from friends and family. Ultimately, it was enough to make the trip affordable for her. When she made it on campus, she took a business and entrepreneurship course every morning with 15 or 20 students. After class, she would explore New York City. All the while, she took rigorous notes of her experience so she could write about it in her application to Columbia. But when she eventually applied to the University, she was rejected—that was when the confusion set in. "You're one step closer, you know? You really make those connections thinking that they'll give you an advantage, and they really didn't," she said. "I didn't get in." Highly selective U.S. universities have long advertised expensive pre-college programs to high school students. In fact, Dartmouth College is the only institution currently listed in the top 40 of the U.S. News and World Report rankings that does not offer some kind of high school program. Many of those programs, including Columbia's, explicitly claim on their websites that attending will not guarantee admission to their undergraduate schools. College counselors have consistently expressed varying opinions about the value of these programs, and critics often write them off as cash cows for universities. But it appears as though no data has ever been made publicly available to shore up that last claim—until now. Documents obtained by Spectator paint dueling pictures of two of Columbia's high school programs: both offered at similar prices, preaching missions that revolve around access for students who would otherwise not experience Columbia. While the programs may seem identical to onlookers—especially to high school students and their families—they are radically different in size and revenue-generating power. And although both programs admit, albeit in obscure corners of their websites, that they do not influence admission to Columbia, some high school students still apply with the impression that participating in those programs will give them a leg up in the college admissions process. Some admission experts acknowledge those impressions—of a "pay-to-play" system—are not entirely false. The School of Professional Studies' Summer Immersion Program, which has operated for decades, raked in more than $20 million in gross revenue over the last two years. Despite claims about the program's access-driven mission, the amount of scholarship money provided by the University makes up a mere fraction of a percentage of its total gross revenue, even though the program claims to work with more than 60 scholarship partners. Over the last two years, the number of Black students in the program has averaged just 4 percent of total students, while the number of Hispanic students averaged 9 percent. "These summer programs are revenue-generators for the schools," Anna Ivey, a college consultant and former dean of admissions at University of Chicago Law School, said. "They are pay-to-play," at least for the on campus experience. The numbers above only represent how the program has operated during the pandemic, when it pivoted to a completely virtual setting and significantly reduced tuition prices. The average three-week cost of attendance for one student from 2017 to 2019 was $10,900. That number was lowered to $3,800 in 2020, when 3,383 students enrolled, and increased again to $4,400 in 2021, when 2,239 students enrolled. It is unclear how much gross revenue the summer immersion program may have collected in 2019 or any years prior—the University would not disclose those numbers to Spectator. It is possible that if a similar number of students enrolled, the gross revenue for each academic year could have been at least two times the $10.5 million collected during the pandemic years. This estimate, however, does not account for expenses such as housing and dining that would have been significantly higher prior to 2020. Direct expenses totaled around $3.9 million in 2020 and $1.3 million in 2021. Net revenue from the programs goes toward offsetting the common cost for SPS. The data also does not account for the amount of money that may have been collected from SPS's academic immersion program, which is offered at similar rates on weekends year-round. The University would not disclose revenue, expense, or enrollment numbers for that program. College Edge, a separate program offered through SPS, made nearly $1 million in gross revenue in 2020. That program differs from the immersion program in that it offers high school upperclassmen and college students the opportunity to earn course credit and a Columbia transcript. It enrolled about 100 students in 2020 with a tuition price of $2,132. That program offers no financial aid. "We prepare students with the academic and social skills they need to successfully navigate their college experience with purpose and passion," Annette Bhatia, executive director of academic administration at SPS, said in a statement to Spectator. "Columbia's undergraduate programs are among the most selective in the nation, and their low admission rates are widely known." But the admission rates of the immersion programs are not widely known. In fact, they have never been made public. Despite multiple requests, the University would not disclose how many students applied to the summer immersion program in the past two years. While the summer immersion program, which is run by SPS, rakes in millions, the Summer High School Academic Program for Engineers, a separate program run by the School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been hemorrhaging cash since its inception in 2018. That year, the program lost $60,400. In 2021, the deficit grew to almost $300,000. Despite enrolling a much smaller number of students—an average of 140 per year—SHAPE dedicates a significantly higher amount of money toward scholarships. Over the past two years, the money put toward scholarships constitutes more than a third of its average gross revenue. "We believe that any opportunity for young people to see science and engineering in action will provide inspiration and will help to build the pipeline and increase the diversity in the engineering field," Leora Brovman, senior associate dean for undergraduate and graduate student affairs at SEAS, said in a statement. When Hannah Ward raised more than $5,400 to go to the three-week summer immersion program of 2019, she did so with the intention of boosting her chances to attend Columbia while studying under renowned painter Miguel Cardenas as part of the immersive experience. "I got accepted and showed my mom and she was like, 'Miss ma'am, did you see the price tag?'" Ward said. "I was like, 'Mom, I have to go,' and she was like, 'Well you're going to have to work for it'—so that's what I did." In interviews with five former summer immersion program students, none complained about the quality of education they received—in fact, all of them raved about the experience. But four of them said they or their parents had been under the impression the program would give them some advantage in the college admissions process—an assumption the University insists is misguided. "Attendance at pre-college summer programs prepares students for college and we have never represented that summer program participation leads to Columbia undergraduate admission," Bhatia said in a statement. Although the University's website claims "students should understand that their participation will have no influence on any ongoing or future application and admissions processes at Columbia College," it is clear that attending the programs can help students with the college admissions process in less direct ways. Evan Masiello, a high school junior in New Jersey who plans on applying to Columbia in the fall, took a class called "Writing the College Application Essay" during this year's virtual summer immersion program. "Columbia just always seemed like an attractive school to me," he said. "My primary goal wasn't to get into the school because of it, but I would definitely not complain." Some college admissions counselors claim that although the programs do not immediately give students a leg up in the college admissions process, there are strategic benefits to going. Brooke Hanson, founder of the college consulting service Supertutor Media, said some students find ways to secure internships and research opportunities while on campus. They also submit letters of recommendation from instructors in their college applications. At the end of the summer immersion program, each student receives an evaluation letter from their instructor. "There is an angle on these, and there is a way that students do leverage them to get in," Hanson said. "So it all just depends on, did you develop a relationship with your professor? How much? Can you get a letter of rec, and is that letter going to be good?" Mimi Doe, a college consultant and co-founder of Top Tier Admissions, said the programs alone do little to boost an application, but if they help spin a broader narrative about an applicant—referred to as a hook in college admissions circles—that can be beneficial. "Pay-to-play alone, just going to Cornell, just going to Brown, just going to NYU summer program is not going to give you an enormous amount of traction at that school," she said. "It will help you if you are developing an academic niche in a particular area, and that school has some offerings that would develop your niche." But not all students apply as a means to an end. Many other students simply apply for the experience, costly as it is. Olly Langol-Leonard, who went to the summer immersion program in 2019, said the program was a "formative experience" that she will remember for the rest of her life. "I soaked everything I could out of it. I would go out with people every day. I would go and meet with my professors every day, so it was really milking the experience as much as I could," she said. Though SHAPE and the summer immersion program claim that their mission is to increase access to the University, the forces driving the programs are very different. SPS is a school within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, a perennially underfunded part of the University with an incentive to find ways to raise money. SEAS has significantly more financial cushion to run a program operating at a deficit. Exactly what these programs are intended for is a difficult question to answer, according to Akil Bello, an education policy consultant and senior director of advocacy and advancement at FairTest. He says it depends on whom you ask. "I would offer that the person they hire to run the program believes that the program is intended to offer an enriching summer academic experience," he said. "The people they hire to market the program believe the program is intended to generate revenue—so I think many of these summer programs at name-brand institutions have parallel motivators." Senior staff writer Zach Schermele can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ZachSchermele. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.